The influence of socio-demographic factors on the nutritional intake of overweight and obese children in the Stellenbosch area, Western Cape

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Introduction: The worldwide increase in the prevalence of childhood overweight and obesityhas been identified as a major threat to children's health and South Africa has not beenspared. A child's food environment is constrained and shaped by their parents/carers whoprovide food based on own food preferences and food selections, which in turn aredetermined by the larger cultural, social and economic context. Risk factors for childhoodobesity are not well established. Existing prevention strategies, focusing on late childhoodand adolescence, are largely unsuccessful. There is however an increasing body of evidencethat the early life environment is an important determinant of risk of obesity in later life.Aim: To determine prevalence and socio-demographic risk factors associated with childhoodoverweight and obesity in the Stellenbosch area, Western Cape Province.Methods: Cross-sectional, comparison study. A representative group of 638 children (aged 6-13 years) attending three randomly selected Stellenbosch primary schools were weighed andmeasured to calculate body mass index (BMI) using international obesity task force (IOTF)guidelines in the screening phase of the project to determine the prevalence of overweightand obesity. The comparison study phase identified 84 overweight and obese children and 84children of normal weight (comparison group) to comprise a sample population of 168children. Socio-demographic data were determined with a structured questionnaire andcompared between the overweight/obese group and comparison group (normal weight) toidentify associated risk factors and investigate the Ho.Results: The prevalence of overweight and obesity in the sample of primary school childrenwas 13% (n=84) as determined by BMI, of which 9% (n=57) were classified as overweightand 4% (n=27) as obese. Socio-economic factors including maternal employment hours(p=0.0462), family characteristics e.g. number of children in the household (p=0.0231), eatingbehaviour like consuming brown rice (p=0.0371), pork (p=0.0143), canola/olive-basedmargarine (p=0.0398) or poly-unsaturated margarine (p=0.0481), doughnuts (p=0.0280) andtime spent doing sport (p=0.0450) were significantly associated with overweight or obesity. Howere thus rejected.Conclusion: The results suggest that maternal working hours, the number of children in thehousehold, poor eating habits and time spent doing sport are important predictor variables forchildhood overweight and obesity. Socio-economic status, infant feeding practices and familycharacteristics like marital circumstances, household number, and mother's age did notappear to play a role in the development of childhood overweight and obesity in thispopulation. In light of this evidence, preventative initiatives should pro-actively promotehealthy eating behaviour and physical activity to children at an early age, in particular girls.Involving families and schools in these initiatives is recommended as well as a nationalchildhood obesity monitoring system to identify children at risk and tracking trends ofchildhood obesity in guiding evidence-based interventions to tackle this major health problem.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University